Corb Lund keeps a pretty low profile when he is home in Lethbridge, but he really knows how to make an impression when he does play 
a rare local show. But first, I caught about half of Aaron Goodvin’s opening set and missed Alee completely. Goodvin played a couple of covers including a cool version of “Walking in Memphis,” and talked about growing up in a house full of women, which lead him to countrify a couple of pop songs from Britney Spears (Baby Hit Me One more Time) and the Backstreet Boys (Back Street’s Back). But he also played his hits.
He told the audience a story about being newly married, laughing as he called himself a “Timbit man,” and introduced “You Are” with an humourous anecdote about waiting for his wife to get ready to go to a movie. The flow of the story was interrupted by an over-exuberant fan in the premium seats, but Goodvin carried on.
His drawl and trucker hat pulled low over his eyes, reminded me a lot of Eric Church with a touch of Chris Knight.
There was no pop in Corb Lund’s set, there was a plenty of real , authentic country sprinkled with Lund’s quirky humour.
He dug deep to begin his set, playing “Hair in my Eyes like A Highland Steer,” “Good Copenhagen” and the more sombre “ The Truth Comes Out.” in quick succession before.
Lund, who showed his punk roots with an SNFU sticker pasted on his black Gretsch guitar, introduced his pretty much all local band the Hurtin Albertans including bassist Kurt Ciesla and Winnipeg guitarist / mandolinist/steel guitarist Grant Siemens and drummer Brady Valgardson, who had his own fan club chanting his name from right in front of the stage.
Lund later borrowed an old Fred Eaglesmith joke to introduce Valgardson at the end of the show “ If a woman is particularly old and unattractive, he’s me.”
In addition to his humour on songs like “Cows Around” and “ Bible on the Dash,” he also showed a knack for singing a beautiful, almost jazzy vocal melody on “ My Little Foothills Heaven.”
Horses got their say on a new song “ Horse Woman,” for which he sang with his cousin Fallon. It was a beautiful moment together and will be a highight of his next album, following the theme of spending all your money on cows.
A couple of old favourites “ The Truck Got Stuck” came in mid set as did his new cover of “Cover of the Rolling Stone,” which he introduced by saying one line isn’t politically correct, so we changed it to “blue eyed 40-year -old groupies.”
It was one of just a few covers in the set. He also sang a beautiful version of “7 Spanish Angels.”
He noted all of his songs were dedicated to his family, dedicating “ Roughest Neck Around,” to an uncle who works in the oil patch.
He showed his love for history on “ I Wanna Be in the Calvary and for Southern Alberta’s whiskey trading history on my absolute favourite “Five Dollar Bill.” which came as the encore after he dug deep again for another favourite “Time To Switch to Whiskey, I’ve been Drinking Beer All Night.”
